Letting Go and Holding On

Lately, these lyrics by Stevie Nicks have been my anthem. On the heels of an empty nest and my oldest getting married, they just “hit different” as my Gen Z kids would say. I feel these lyrics not in my ears but in my bones. Because I really did. I built entire decades — meal schedules, prayers, carpool routes, Christmas mornings — around them. And I wouldn’t change a thing. 

Speaking of getting married, the one who made me a mom is now someone’s husband. How is this even possible? The morning after his wedding, I woke up with what can only be described as an emotional hangover (and 10 days later, it still lingers). Not from champagne, but from the flood of feelings that come when you watch your firstborn step into a new life that no longer orbits around you. I spent years preparing him for independence, but neglected to prepare myself for irrelevance.

I knew this day would come. The baby I once strapped into a car seat now drives off with a new passenger — his wife. I guess that means I’m no longer his emergency contact. Of course, this is how it should be. Parenting, after all, is the art of working yourself out of a job. But even knowing that, it still stings a little when your demotion arrives.

Everyone told me I’d be so happy on this day — and I truly was. The love, the joy, the laughter, and the tears were an honor to be a part of. But nobody warned me about the quiet ache that hides beneath it all — the peculiar grief of stepping back. It’s strange how two emotions can occupy the same space with such intensity. How can you feel like you’ve gained a daughter and lost a son in the very same moment? I don’t know. I just know that I do. He belongs to someone else now in a way he never has before. It’s beautiful and it’s right. It’s also brutal.

There should be a manual called How to Love Your Married Son Without Texting Too Much (I probably text too much.) I’m still learning the rhythm of letting him go, but not letting him drift too far. It feels like learning to dance again — taking new steps while trying not to step on anyone’s toes, especially my new daughter-in-law’s. She’s wonderful — wise, warm, kind, and funny — and I truly mean it when I say I’ve gained a daughter. She loves our family so, so well, and we love her. Still, there's a quiet recalibration happening inside me, as I figure out my place in this new constellation. The mother becomes a moon — no longer the center, but still shining.

So I sit in this in-between — this bittersweet cocktail of joy and loss — reminding myself that change isn’t a betrayal of love; it’s proof of it. The goal was never to keep him, but to raise him to go. To watch him build a life that extends beyond mine. And maybe the ache I feel now is simply the echo of a job well done.